Of Morningside’s search for the ‘Great Canadian Song’ some years ago….writer and broadcaster Peter Gzowski had this to say….

“Along the way, a couple of things became clear, for me at least. One was that there never would be a single clear winner, no one song that stood by itself above all the rest. Oh, there were several that pulled remarkable numbers of nominations – the top three”…”in inverse order”…”were Ian Tyson’s ‘Four Strong Winds’,”… “Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Canadian Railroad Trilogy,'”…”and, at the top, Stan Rogers’ stirring ‘Northwest Passage.’ But the other conclusion I came to was that it didn’t matter. They were all great songs. They mattered to people. They were part of our lives. At a time when we’re doing so much hand-wringing about what our culture is or whether we have one at all, maybe we should just spend some time singing them to ourselves and to the world.” – Peter Gzowski from Friends, Moments, Countryside: Selected Columns From Canadian Living, 1993-98.

Peter John Gzowski (1934 – 2002) also known as ‘Mr. Canada’ was a Toronto born, Canadian broadcaster and writer most famous for his years as host of the CBC radio show Morningside. He also wrote columns for the Globe and Mail and for CanadianLiving.